Transcript Upgrading an entire campus to enterprise email and

Upgrading an entire campus to
enterprise email and calendar
with GroupWise
Betsy Black and E. Axel Larsson
Drew University
ACM SIGUCCS ’06
Agenda
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Background
Motivations behind the switch
A successful pilot
Formation of a task force
A phased approach to a migration
Incentives and support resources
Results and lessons learned
Some background…
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Drew University
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Located in northern New Jersey
Consists of a College of Liberal Arts, Theological,
and Graduate school
Approximately 2,500 student FTEs
Largely residential
Standard laptop program for all CLA students
Some background…
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Drew has provided basic email service to all
students, faculty, and staff since 1989..
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DEC All-In-One (OpenVMS) through 1998
PMDF IMAP w/ Netscape Communicator 4.x +
IMP Webmail (1998 – 2002)
Novell NetMail IMAP w/ Mozilla Mail + NetMail
WebAccess (2002 – 2006)
Today: Novell GroupWise 7 w/ Windows and
Cross-Platform clients + WebAccess
Why switch away from
standards-based IMAP?
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New administrative staff not satisfied with
basic IMAP email
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No calendar support.
No PDA/wireless email support.
Most often cited technology need.
Continued support issues using nonintegrated client and mail system:
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Mozilla address books vs. WebAccess address
books.
Mozilla rules vs. NetMail rules.
Pilot project (Fall 2005)
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Moved all technology staff to GroupWise.
President’s Office migrated.
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Most pressing need was getting the presidential
calendar in GW with appropriate proxy access for
his staff.
BlackBerry Enterprise Server rollout.
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Technology staff.
President.
Selected cabinet-level staff.
Moving forward – Formation
of a GroupWise task-force.
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Representatives from all technology areas:
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Computing and Network Services
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Instructional Technology Services
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Systems Administration
Enterprise Applications
User Support / Helpdesk
Training
Documentation
Administrative Computing
Objectives
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Use this as an opportunity to improve email
service levels.
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Streamline the migration process
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Implement clustering for fault-tolerance
Self-service tools.
Copious training and support resources
Give people a reason to switch
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Greater enterprise feature set, calendars, etc.
More space
GroupWise System Overview
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NetWare 6.5 SP5 cluster (4 servers)
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Four post offices
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Clustered POs, WebAccess, and GWIA
University Technology (migrated from standalone
server – 50GB)
Employee (150GB)
Student PO1 and 2 (150GB each)
GWGuardian spam/virus filtering
BlackBerry Enterprise Server
GW Mobile Server
Linux-based list server (Mailman)
A Phased Deployment
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Phase 1 – Early Adopters
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March 1, 2006 – May 1, 2006
New users were still set up on NetMail by default.
Users could “opt-in” through a self-service web
site. Faculty/staff only.
Migration tools available:
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Transend Migrator (third-party) for moving IMAP mail
and Mozilla address books.
University Technology student employees moved
to GW for training and support purposes.
A Phased Deployment
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Phase 2 – Full Deployment
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May 1, 2006 – November 1, 2006
New users created on GroupWise.
New computers come with GW client preinstalled
– all existing images updated.
Self-service tools available, GW now available for
students. Enhanced migration tools available:
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Home-grown server-side IMAP copier
Home-grown Mozilla address book converter.
A Phased Deployment
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Phase 3 – Compulsory Migration
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All remaining GW accounts turned on November
1, 2006.
Old NetMail system remains available for
migration of old email messages only.
Users have until March 1, 2007 to retrieve old
messages.
Phase 4 – NetMail discontinued
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March 1, 2007 – Old email server
decommissioned.
Targeted groups
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Residential Hall Assistants (RAs)
Orientation Committee members
Athletics Department and athletes (returned
early)
Public Safety officers
Students studying abroad during the fall
semester
Increased Support Resources
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CNS Helpdesk chat room using GroupWise
Messenger
“Satellite” helpdesk location at the start of the
semester
Building sweeps by university technology
staff
GroupWise “kiosks” near the main dining hall
in weeks before and after compulsory
migration phase
Tools to help with the Migration
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Self-service account activation
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Web-based “wizard” points user to docs, client install
instructions, etc. and allows for one-click account
activation.
Sets up forwarding on the old NetMail system.
Creates GW account.
Self-service address book converter
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Converts exported Mozilla address books into a .vcf format
which can be imported into GW.
Web-based
Developed by a student employee in PHP
Tools to help with the Migration
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Self-service mail copy utility.
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Moves users mail from NetMail to GroupWise
using IMAP
Web-based
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Users are presented with a list of folders to migrate
Actual migration is submitted and performed as a
background task.
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Users don’t need to keep browser open or wait while
migration proceeds.
Developed by a student employee in PHP
Incentives (and nags)
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The 1,000th user to migrate was taken to lunch by
university technology
Bigger mail quotas (1GB for fac/staff, 200MB for
students vs. 60MB/40MB on NetMail)
Weekly email reminders targeted at netmail users
Default welcome screen in Mozilla Mail
Tool to import class schedules into GroupWise
calendar
Flyers posted at key campus locations
Some results..
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By the numbers…
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92 users before Phase 1 started...
623 users by the end of Phase 1 (early adopters)…
Phase 2 (full deployment):
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May 1 – 623 users
July 1 – 1,387 users
September 1 – 2,211 users
October 1 – 2,956 users
599 users hadn’t switched by November 1 (3314 total
switched by October 31)
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Almost exclusively part-time grad students
Aftermath…
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Customers who were asking for the GW featureset
have been very pleased with the results
Surprised that compulsory migration (Nov. 1st) did
not trigger a substantial increase in Helpdesk calls.
Some complaints about performance of the Mac
client.
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Hopeful this will be addressed in GW 7 SP2
Unanticipated demand for automatic mail forwarding
Client install issues on machines with older releases
of the ZENWorks tools
For more information…
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depts.drew.edu/cns/groupwise
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Betsy Black
[email protected]
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E. Axel Larsson
[email protected]